Day Twelve

We’re into double figures! Woohoo! So, today is a bit exciting for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it’s Friday and now that I work full time I actually look forward to and appreciate weekends much more; secondly, the tuck shop at work actually stocks Crunchies and just looking at them gives me that Friday feeling that everyone is talking about; thirdly, my friend who lives in Birmingham (for those of you not in the UK this is quite a distance from where I live) is home for a few days and we’re going out for food – I kind of love food. You guys wouldn’t mind the occasional foodie post right? Because I bake a lot of cakes… Maybe I could try to combine the two… Things that I read whilst I was waiting for things to cook… AND! AND the most important of these exciting things: Today’s 30 day challenge post.

Your favourite authors.

Oh. My. Gallifrey.
For those of you that are familiar with this blog, you may have seen this post before, which very nicely starts us off and leads me into my first favourite writer that I really want to talk about.

F. Scott Fitzgerald.
I’m a bit fan of Fitzgerald, although, as highlighted in that post I linked you to up there, not necessarily for his writing. I do kind of love how poetic his work is, it’s full of imagery and it’s not often that you stumble across someone that can make you visualise stuff in as much detail as old Scott Fitzgerald could. That said, I wasn’t overly fond of The Great Gatsby. I read it for the first time a couple of years ago and quite enjoyed it but it’s like one of those pretentious arty period dramas where nothing happens until the very end. I re read it again last year and found that I enjoyed it more the second time around, but I still much prefer the man to the words. There’s a whole list of reasons why over on that blog post I made about him. But yeah. I kind of love Fitzgerald.

J K Rowling.
Who doesn’t love her? No, seriously, I want to know because I’d be really interested to know why. I have always been a writer, always loved writing, always wanted to publish something for myself, but it wasn’t until I read Harry Potter that I truly realised that doing that was possible. Harry Potter changed my life, maybe not in the same way that it changed other peoples, but to me, it was the discovery of another person who loved writing and telling stories being granted their wish in front of me and touching the hearts of millions of people around the world all at the same time. I had the pleasure of meeting J K Rowling at an event in Bath recently and she was so humble and down to earth, spoke so passionately about her craft, her characters and her stories that it would be a crime not to include her in this list.

John Green.
You guys saw that coming right? Another writer that I’ve met… I was lucky enough to go to the Swindon TFIOS Tour and also to Leaky Con 2012 in Chicago where I got to spend a bit of time with John Green and also view several panels that he contributed to. I adore everything of his that I have read so far. I’m not overly sure why, TFIOS was close to perfection, but Paper Towns and Looking for Alaska, both of which I loved, had their moments where I wasn’t so sure about certain phrases or sentences. I think if I could be half the writer that John Green is, I would be insanely satisfied.

David Levithan.
Yeah. I’m just going to go and cry next to the pile that was my ambition and aspiration as a writer. Seriously, the first time I read a David Levithan book I did this:

I just can’t even begin to explain how brilliant he is at shaping meaningless words into sentences that make me feel every emotion known to man, that speak to me and caress me the way that another human being would. If you’ve not yet experienced the utter joy that is David Levithan, you guys need to.

So, that was that. I’m kind of disgusted with myself at the lack of women in this list. I was going to include Maureen Johnson but I mostly love her because of her contributions to Twitter, I like her books but I wouldn’t say they were my favourite, and I would have included an Austin but again… There are writers I like better. Hopefully I’ll get the chance to rave about some awesome kick ass girls a bit later in this challenge.